GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract • Hacker News Board

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#21

Post by truthwhisperer » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:42 PM UTC

vertex-four wrote: post #8

rpmisms wrote: post #3

Whoop-de-do. If you don't like the company, leave.

If all the employees with morals leave, GitHub will be left with no employees with morals. That is probably a worse situation.

what kind of morals? These are probably the same guys who make 200-300k per year on wage + stock options If they have moral donate 50% of their wage towards these "poor" people or just tell them how woke you are and take on camera (with your 1000 euro iphone)

I'm mean you don't invite people to your well build house who don't even know how to use the toilet right. So be harsh but fair on immigration and only allow the people who can contribute to a better society.

The same as in their github environment. They don't allow people to work within Microsoft who are just fired at Burger king but don't have any relevant capabilities right

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#22

Post by mc32 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:42 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #14

> With the issue refusing to go away, GitHub executives have changed their internal messaging, including a memo to employees saying barring ICE from “access to GitHub could actually hurt the very people we all want to help,” in the words of Chief Operating Officer Erica Brescia. > “We have learned from a number of nonprofits and refugee advocates that one of the greatest challenges facing immigrants is a lack of tech…

It’s the opposite of politics. They’re leaving politics out of it and saying, if it’s legit business we won’t deny you business.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#23

Post by godzillabrennus » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

nrook wrote: post #9

There is a well-known strategy by which employees can exert influence over their employer and change the decisions it makes. It is called a union. Unionization has been slow for various reasons in the tech sector; when it comes to rich, well-known companies, people don't want to go through the effort to unionize and get more money when they already are being paid a lot. But if workers want to influence decisions like…

Unions have historically tended to reward seniority over merit. Tech workers should work to solve that if they organize.

I think a lot of problems caused by unions trace back to that.

Unions should come back to help recreate the middle class.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#24

Post by creaghpatr » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #14

> With the issue refusing to go away, GitHub executives have changed their internal messaging, including a memo to employees saying barring ICE from “access to GitHub could actually hurt the very people we all want to help,” in the words of Chief Operating Officer Erica Brescia. > “We have learned from a number of nonprofits and refugee advocates that one of the greatest challenges facing immigrants is a lack of tech…

ICE is not a partisan organization, it's a government agency. If you pay taxes, you support ICE, and are their customer, period.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#25

Post by ratsmack » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #5

ratsmack wrote: post #2

It seems that these kinds of demands are becoming more common. Is it because conflict resolution is becoming a dying art, is it because people don't rise to the level of maturity of past times? I just find it to be confusing. Non PW link: https://archive.ph/IkYQ3

I think it's just more awareness of employee power - or, perhaps, technological advancement making it such that employees actually do have meaningful power and much more liquidity in the job market, that GitHub is GitHub because of the technical skills of ICs and not the organizational skills of management, whereas your stereotypical successful company 50-100 years ago was successful because of infrastructure and bus…

Just sitting here thinking about it, I can't remember anything specific like this outside of the tech industry... I may be wrong though.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#26

Post by theabsurdman » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

rpmisms wrote: post #3

Whoop-de-do. If you don't like the company, leave.

https://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definit...

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#27

Post by baggy_trough » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

jacobsenscott wrote: post #6

ratsmack wrote: post #2

It seems that these kinds of demands are becoming more common. Is it because conflict resolution is becoming a dying art, is it because people don't rise to the level of maturity of past times? I just find it to be confusing. Non PW link: https://archive.ph/IkYQ3

I think it is because human rights abuses by the US government are becoming more common. Or at least more brazen.

What an absurd thing to believe.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#28

Post by nimbius » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

The question I am most curious about is this: would Github have done this before Microsoft acquired them?

Redmond has a long running history of doing backflips for Washington.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#29

Post by joshypants » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #14

> With the issue refusing to go away, GitHub executives have changed their internal messaging, including a memo to employees saying barring ICE from “access to GitHub could actually hurt the very people we all want to help,” in the words of Chief Operating Officer Erica Brescia. > “We have learned from a number of nonprofits and refugee advocates that one of the greatest challenges facing immigrants is a lack of tech…

It's not simply partisan-ness. It's specifically pro-authoritarian, anti-immigrant. It's saying it's okay to inflict child abuse on non-citizens as a deterrent against lawbreaking. And a whole bunch of other things.

Re: GitHub tries to quell employee anger over its ICE contract

#30

Post by CydeWeys » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

ratsmack wrote: post #2

It seems that these kinds of demands are becoming more common. Is it because conflict resolution is becoming a dying art, is it because people don't rise to the level of maturity of past times? I just find it to be confusing. Non PW link: https://archive.ph/IkYQ3

That's very weird to conflate employees of tech companies caring more about other people's rights with a loss of "the maturity of past times". It wasn't the maturity of past times, it was the status quo of not really caring about anyone else's rights at all. The civil rights movement was only half a century ago!